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People who run African affairs: staffing and recruitment in the African Union Commission

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2020

Thomas Kwasi Tieku ,
Stefan Gänzle  and
Jarle Trondal
Thomas Kwasi Tieku*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, King's University College at The University of Western Ontario, 266 Epworth Avenue, London, Ontario, CanadaN6A 2M3
Stefan Gänzle*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science and Management, University of Agder, Universitetsveien 25, 4604Kristiansand, Norway
Jarle Trondal*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science and Management, University of Agder, Universitetsveien 25, 4604 Kristiansand, Norway and ARENA Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo, Gaustadalèen 30, 0373 Oslo, Norway
*
Email: ttieku@uwo.ca
Email: stefan.ganzle@uia.no
Email: jarle.trondal@uia.no
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Abstract

This study contributes to the field of International Public Administration (IPA) and the emerging area of Informal International Relations (IIR) by examining the politics of staffing and recruitment of the African Union Commission (AUC). Although the AUC has become a major political player in international affairs, there is a dearth of knowledge about the civil servants who work for the AUC and who run this paramount pan-African executive body. To address the void, this paper draws on a survey of 137 AUC staff, archival studies and interviews to explore recruitment of AUC staff. Combining organisational theory and informality as analytical lenses, the study demonstrates that, first, many informal international practices (IIPs) are embedded in AUC recruitment processes. Second, the AUC is composed largely of short-term, contracted staff. Finally, it shows that the AUC is dependent on lower-ranked personnel or that it is bottom-heavy. Many of these lower-ranked officials are intimately involved in the making of AUC policies and decisions, putting into question the assumption in existing scholarship that decision-makers of IOs are primarily reliant on top-ranked A-level officials (senior management).

Keywords

Informal international practices (IIPs)African Union (AU)international public administration (APA)international civil servantsinternational bureaucratsregional organisations (ROs) and international public service
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 58 , Issue 3 , September 2020 , pp. 461 - 481
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

We thank Nadja Sophia Bekkelund Kühn and the staff of the African Union Leadership Academy (AULA) for helping us with data collection, the anonymous reviewers and JMAS team for their outstanding work, Professors Daniel Bach, Kevin Parthenay as well as participants of the International Workshop on Staffing Regional Organisations in the Global South held on 17 October 2019 at SciencesPo for helpful comments on an earlier draft of the article. Also, we are grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for funding the Informal IR Lab at King's University College where a significant portion of this manuscript was produced and the 2020 Lab members, namely Jessica Afara, David Carson, Victoria Hinkson, Eugenia Kontor-Kwateng, Elizabeth Kozak, Nordiah Newell, Megan Payler and Renae Pennington, for research assistance. The views expressed here and any error in the article are solely ours.

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